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It is possible that a stronger person, a person less wracked by the self-doubt that comes hand-in-hand with the cruel loss of control of compulsion, might have found a way to laugh it off. Even as fingers were pointed, and cruelly comic faces were made, and braying laughter filled the hallway. It is possible that another person could have somehow found the strength to hold her head high even as the one success she had ever had in her life was discredited, ridiculed, and reduced to ashes.
But Samantha Early was not that person.
Kayla, alone for once, watched from behind her open locker door. I saw her there. I saw her eyes follow Samantha as she dropped her book bag, turned, and fled the school, chased away by sickening gales of laughter.
Kayla had triumphed absolutely.
14
I WANTED TO KILL HER. KAYLA. I DIDN’T KNOW the girl, had never guessed at her existence until the day before. But I felt a sickness inside myself watching her in her victory, her pointless, cruel victory.
“Call the Game Master,” I said through gritted teeth.
Messenger said nothing. He was back to his taciturnity, his . . . I was about to say indifference, but when I saw his face, what I saw there was not indifference. He was looking at me with pity, as though he regretted my words. Or perhaps as though he was sorry to have made this tragedy a part of my life.
“She deserves to be punished,” I said stridently. “She killed Samantha as surely as if she’d stabbed her with a knife.”
Messenger looked at me for a long time as if considering what he should do with me. What I had taken for earlier approval, and then pity, had turned flinty. But whatever he was planning to do next was stopped by the arrival of Daniel, who walked past Kayla and beneath the banner. In his casual clothing he looked almost as if he could be one of the students now rushing to disappear into their classrooms.
“Daniel,” Messenger said in curt greeting.
“Messenger,” Daniel said just as curtly. “A matter requires your attention.”
“Another case?”
Daniel nodded. “A very serious one, I am sorry to tell you.”
“I am with my apprentice,” Messenger said tightly.
“Your apprentice is meant to learn, is she not?”
“I would soften the shock with a bit more time,” Messenger said.
“You have a soft heart, Messenger. I admire your compassion. But we have our obligations. We do not serve ourselves or even our apprentices.”
From that statement, delivered in clipped, no-nonsense style, I learned two things: that I had been mistaken in seeing Daniel as easygoing—and that for whatever unfathomable reason, Daniel saw Messenger as softhearted. It made me want to laugh. The Messenger of Fear might have moments of compassion, but he had summoned the Game Master to terrify Liam and Emma, and if that had been compassion or softheartedness, it was of a type so attenuated that I could hardly recognize it.
“Oriax has her eye on my apprentice,” Messenger said. “I wish to take the necessary time to prepare her.”
“Oriax and her folk are always busy, as you know. It is possible that while Oriax teases you, Messenger, knowing your vulnerability, she has been at work elsewhere.”
Messenger drew a sharp breath. He had not liked the implication that Oriax had an effect on him. “So long as Ariadne lives, Oriax will have no power over me.”
Daniel sighed, looked down, and shook his head, a bit like a disappointed parent. “Don’t be a fool, Messenger. Do as you are directed. You see a great deal. But you do not see all.”
At that, Daniel, with a sideways glance at me, laid his hand against Messenger’s cheek. Strange to me that there could be something parental in that touch, for Daniel was smaller than Messenger. Perhaps a few years older, but in no way imposing or impressive.
I wondered whether Daniel, when he touched Messenger, who was not to be touched, saw that same horror show of images that still rattled around like skeletons in my mind.
The contact lasted for at least a minute, and halfway through Messenger bowed his head in acceptance. I was sure that Daniel was telling him something, transferring information of a sad nature to him, for Messenger’s eyes drooped and closed, and a weary sigh rose from his chest.
Fin
ally Daniel took his hand away and Messenger stood there, silent, eyes still closed, rocking almost imperceptibly back and forth.
Daniel looked at me, waited until he was certain that he had my full attention, and said, “He is your master. You are his apprentice. Learn from him. He is a very good teacher.” He paused, gazing up at Messenger, as sad now as my “master,” and added in a husky voice, “He has given great service, and he has endured more of this wicked world than I hope you ever shall.”
Daniel walked around the two of us, and when I turned to watch him go, he was already gone. Kayla, too, was gone, though whether to her next class or elsewhere, I did not know.
